Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Above: A Yazidi village. The Yazidi are followers of a Middle Eastern religion with ancient roots, which says God created the world and gave responsibility for it to archangels. In April, Yazidi villagers kidnapped a girl who had converted to Islam and stoned her to death. Islamic gunmen later forced 23 Yazidi off of a bus, and executed them.

Northwestern Iraq bombings kill at least 175

Suicide bombers driving fuel tankers killed at least 175 people in apparently coordinated attacks in northwestern Iraq Tuesday, the Iraqi army said, in one of the worst incidents of its kind in the four-year-old war.

Iraqi army captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people were wounded in the bombings in Yazidi residential compounds in the Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair areas near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

The mayor of Sinjar, Dakheel Qassim Hasoun, gave the same casualty figures.

Police said the bombings appeared to target the Yazidis, members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect who live in northern Iraq and Syria.

At least 175 people were killed last night in a quadruple suicide attack on a town in northern Iraq.

In one of the bloodiest atrocities since the fall of Saddam Hussein at least another 200 people were wounded in the bombings in separate areas of the town of Kahtaniya, west of Mosul, Iraqi army Captain Mohammad al-Jaad said.

The attacks on the Yazidi community occurred about 8pm local time leaving whole apartment buildings destroyed and several shops nearby ablaze.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks but they bore the hallmark of al-Qaeda, which has been regrouping in the north of the country after being driven from safe havens in Anbar and Diyala provinces.